Peter tossed from side to side yet again in his fitful slumber.

This time his restlessness was not due to some all-powerful being or group or sect that had somehow become an almost daily occurrence for him since he was reunited with his father; no – this feeling of uneasiness was reaching up from the inner-depths of Peter's own soul, his own essence.

In his drowsy state he sensed Jordan's body beside him but that did nothing to calm him or take the edge off what he was experiencing.

He had gone to bed that evening feeling sick to his stomach; feeling alone and frightened. Peter hadn't felt that way since he was a young boy and after finding his father, he thought he'd never have reason to think or feel that way again.

Trying to ward off the darkness that was overtaking his sleep, Peter once again replayed the scene of the preceding day in his mind's eye.

******

He had called out to his father when he reached Caine's place but Caine was nowhere to be seen. He was about to leave when he heard voices and a faint giggle. He followed the voices and headed down to the basement. As he got closer he recognised the voices as those of his father and Mary-Margaret.

`Great, my father is entertaining Skalany down there!' Peter thought to himself as a silly grin smirked across his face. He hadn't yet come to terms with his father's `relationship' with Mary-Margaret. He did his best to stay out of it and he never, ever asked Skalany about anything to do with his father, unless it was of a non-personal nature.

He wanted more than anything to not go down the stairs; he didn't want to walk in on that scene but he had business to discuss with his father and it really couldn't wait.

Peter started down the stairs clumsily, making as much noise as possible to alert them of his arrival. Peter was stopped in his tracks almost immediately on entering the basement. To say he was surprised was an understatement. They were looking through old trunks and boxes. Skalany was holding 3 journals and his father was flipping through old photographs.

Peter bit his bottom lip in a defensive gesture, not wanting to speak too hastily.

"What's going on here?"

It wasn't his father who spoke. Mary Margaret smiled and said giddily "Hi Pete. Um, your father is taking me on ride through the last 15 years or so of his life! Obviously it will take longer than an afternoon, but we've made a start."

Peter managed to look only at his father; Skalany may as well have been a piece of old furniture in the dank basement. Caine sensed his son's pain from where he stood, 10 feet away. He held his son's gaze and saw first a flash of anger in his darkened green eyes and then followed quickly by a look that held sorrow and longing. When Caine saw tears welling he offered his first words.

"Mary Margaret, will you please excuse us; I need to speak with my son."

"Sure. Ah, I'll be upstairs!" She hadn't really noticed the tension binding the two men in their paralysed stance and just made her way up the rickety stairs.

When Caine took his first tentative steps toward Peter, his son turned away. He pushed away some stinging tears and then shoved his hands deeply into his pockets.

Caine spoke softly, "Peter? I sense your great pain my son…"

Peter almost spat, hissing "Really! Well that's great Pop! And why do you think I'm feeling this great pain? Huh?"

Caine was taken aback by the venom oozing from Peter's words. He reached out to touch his son but Peter recoiled, flinching away as though a touch from Caine might actually physically hurt him.

"Peter, please?"

"Please what father? Why? Tell me why!"

Caine spoke no words. He moved quietly across the room, closing boxes and putting things back from where they came. Peter ran his hands tensely through his hair and tried to calm his breathing; it had become very erratic since his arrival on the scene between his father and Skalany. For the life of him he couldn't comprehend why his father was showing her this stuff, his life – to her… after telling him for almost a year that he couldn't or wouldn't do that with him. Peter's heart was feeling very heavy at that moment in time.

Peter's next move surprised both himself and his father and it would prove to be his undoing. He took up a glass bowl from a bench and hurled it across the room, smashing it against the basement wall. Caine did not flinch at all. He just looked at his son with regret and said nothing.

Peter swiped at tears and roared "Why? Why can't you share this part of your life with me? You can show her – you showed Skalany – you talked to her… I'm your flesh and blood – why can't you treat me with that kind of respect! Do you really feel that less of me?"

(Mary Margaret had heard Peter's outburst and she knew she shouldn't be around for what was to come. She quietly left Caine's abode.)

Caine closed up the last of the boxes and headed for the stairs.

"That's right… Walk away! If you're not bamboozling me with some cryptic message or philosophy you're walking away… you've spent your whole life walking away from me – why should now be any different!"

Caine reached the top stair and heard his son's painful cries "Well I'll tell you something for free Pop; I don't need you – I never needed you – and I don't need you now. You can go back to where it was you were hiding for all those years because I'm through – I don't need this crap anymore!"

Caine heard another glass object smash as he closed the basement door behind him.

Peter sank to his knees and sobbed uncontrollably. Eventually he pulled himself together enough to make his way out of the basement. He left Caine's place without laying eyes on his father again.

When he reached his place, Jordan had dinner waiting for him and she was ticked off because he was late. He sure as Hell wasn't in the mood for one of her hissy fits and he let fly with a few expletives before she closed herself in the bedroom with a slam of the door. Peter spent the next 2 hours drinking bourbon on the rocks and stewing in his own misery.

Rousing from his sleep Peter sat upright in bed, his chest heaving and glistening with sweat. His thoughts all came rushing back to his throbbing head and he put his hands to his damp face. He felt Jordan stir beside him and he was reminded instantly of how he had treated her hours earlier in his rage. He leaned over gently and brushed a hair from her cheek and kissed the same cheek softly and whispered "I am so sorry… I will make it up to you – I promise." He hoped that somehow she would remember that in the morning.

Peter got out of bed. He pulled on some jeans and a sweater and headed out to the living room. He turned on a small lamp and at that moment became aware of someone else in the room with him. His heart skipped two or maybe three important beats before his eyes registered that it was his father standing in the shadows by the front door.

Peter looked at the hall clock; 2.24am. He crossed his arms over his chest and mumbled "What are you doing here in the middle of the night?"

Caine spoke evenly and calmly "You needed to talk – I am here."

Peter spoke more loudly than he anticipated, "No, I needed to talk earlier but as usual you shut me out! I don't want to talk now – I have nothing to say now!"

Caine emerged into the light of the lamp and said "That is not true my son; you called out for me in your sleep – I know you want to talk to me; I know you have much to say."

Peter shot him a look that told him to back off but Caine stood his ground and held his angry son's eyes with his own. Within a few moments the anger began to subside in Peter's eyes and he averted his gaze, not wanting his father to see how sorry he really was for how this whole situation had unfolded.

Peter had a temper, he was well aware of that – as was everyone around him that really knew him. Jordan knew it, his work colleagues at the 101 knew it and now his father knew it. Paul Blaisdell was the first to know of Peter's temper and that was the main reason Paul pushed Peter toward the Police Academy all those years ago; he knew then that if Peter didn't rein in that temper, that anger – that it would follow him around for the rest of his life. When Peter was reunited with his father, somehow that anger let go of him and Peter began to shine. He was just starting to let down his defences and guards in the last few months and no one was happier than Paul. Peter had spoken to Paul about Caine; about how truly blessed he was to have found his father again but at the same time he was conscious of letting Paul know how much he still held him in his heart as a father figure; how he would always hold that special place in his heart.

Paul took a step sideways – but never back – from his foster son. He understood that Peter needed time to bond with his real father and he never begrudged that, not for a second. In fact, Paul and Caine had spoken often over the past months about their son. Paul knew that Peter was desperate to know where his father had been for those missing 15 years of his life; how it ate away at his very core but Paul assured Peter that one day, someday, Caine would open up and share that part of his life with him and Peter couldn't wait.

As Peter thought back on Paul's words and then looked across at his father, his fingers went to his mouth, pulling at his lip nervously the way he always did when he was in a jam of some kind. He sat down on the sofa and spoke quietly.

"Paul told me a long time ago that someday you would open up to me and that you would share your life with me, your whole life – the life that I missed out on for that 15 years – the 15 years I should have been with you, that every son needs to have with his father. I believed Paul when he told me that – he'd never lied to me before so I trusted him. When I walked down those stairs to your basement I felt this overwhelming sense of betrayal… there are no other words to describe it… you betrayed me and you made me feel betrayed by Paul."

Caine sat in a chair opposite his son and clasped his hands together.

"My son… Your sense of betrayal comes from within – it is not something that I have brought about. You must heed your own inner voice and accept what it is telling you."

"Stop it all right! Stop with the crap okay! I've had enough mumbo jumbo for a whole lifetime… Can't you just speak to me! Damn it – why can't you just open your mouth and talk to me, instead of at me!"

That temper was flaring again and Caine wasn't sure if he had read the situation correctly; perhaps Peter wasn't ready to talk to him yet, maybe his anger and frustration was still clouding his mind and preventing him from seeing clearly.

He tried to speak more forthrightly, to make it clearer for Peter. "I cannot make you feel betrayed by another person… that feeling comes from within you… I did not place it there. My actions as you see them do not take away from the vow that Paul Blaisdell made to you. As your father he promised you something he knew you needed to hear; he believed it at the time and it still holds true; you have just decided that right now my actions have meant that I am never going to fulfil that promise for you. You have made that decision, no one else. No betrayal has taken place."

Peter thought for a few moments, trying to take in what his father's had just said. "Tell me why you were able to take Skalany down to that basement and open those sealed boxes and chests and relay to her the great mystery that surrounds the wondrous Kwai Chang Caine."

Caine didn't appreciate the sarcasm dripping from Peter's eloquent description of him but he let it slide. He thought long and hard for what felt like an eternity to Peter who was hanging off every audible breath coming from his father, just wanting to hear something, anything that could take away his hurt, his pain.

"Peter… Mary Margaret is a part of my life. She is a very dear friend and we have developed a very strong bond – I think you are well aware of this. At this point in our relationship, I found it necessary to talk to her, to answer her questions. She is filled with a sense of wanting – needing to know the real me. She has been hurt many times in the past and she finds it very difficult to trust and I wanted to allay her fears somewhat… I told her a little of my history – I showed her a few photographs and we talked at length about a period of time in my life. None of that relates to you or me – can you not see that?"

Peter's voice rose in volume again, "No I can't see that! I'm a part of your life too or at least I thought I was and I thought we had a strong bond, an unbroken bond! I have questions – I have hundreds of questions but you never answer them; you go out of your way to avoid my questions. I need to know stuff too; I need to know you as well – the real you! I too have been hurt before and I trust no one. Until I met Paul I had no one in my life that I could ever trust and no one since. I have fears that need to be allayed too… so you tell me how this doesn't relate to you and me!"

"Lower your voice son, you do not wish to wake Jordan. She would be devastated to hear what you just said." Peter looked at him quizzically, not understanding what Jordan had to do with any of this.

"She would be greatly saddened to learn that you do not feel that you can trust her."

Peter thought back and then snapped "Stop twisting my words; this has nothing to do with her – this is about you and me, about our relationship or lack thereof. I don't think you care enough one way or another to set this right… If you did, you would just tell me what I need to know and let me put it behind me and because you haven't done that or you're unable to do that, then I am left with the sense that you really don't care."

"You know that it is not correct, in your heart you know that not to be true. You are my son, my only child – I love you with my whole being, more than life itself. I would give of my life for you Peter."

Peter's eyes began stinging with inevitable tears. "Then why don't you trust me enough to share the secrets of your life with me?" Peter's quiet tone spoke volumes of the pain and hurt he was feeling.

Caine moved to the sofa beside Peter and said quietly "You and I are of one soul Peter; you are a part of me. We share blood and we share our heart; there is no bond stronger than what we have tying us together… that bond will never be broken – just as it was not broken for all those years we did not see each other. When you came to me in that hospital room and you knew instinctively that it was me – your heart led you there and with great purpose. The love we share is never-ending. Peter, I have but a brief time with Mary Margaret, I know that and on some level I think she may know that too. She will pass through my life and she will not look back. I don't know for certain when that day will come but it is not sealed like my fate is with you. We have our whole lives ahead to learn of these secrets, to share our lives and experiences… we are on this path together. I feel no rush to end this journey – I feel renewed each new day that I get to spend with my son, how blessed I am to have you back in my life. If we rush this journey, it will end before its time and we will both miss out on so much, which is not what I want for us."

Peter looked into his father's aging eyes and saw the love that he felt looking right back at him. He fell into his father's embrace and sobbed against his shoulder. Caine held his son gently and waited for the sobs to subside.

Eventually Peter sat back and wiped at his face with the sleeve of his sweater. "I am so sorry for the things I said to you yesterday; I was angry and confused and upset… I didn't mean any of it."

"I know that my son. Peter, you will one day marry and have children of your own (Peter rolled his eyes at that thought) and you will come to learn that a bond between father and child is unyielding. You will learn that many loves take shape and many relationships can be formed but none as unique as the bond you will have with your child. Right now is my time to forge a path with Mary Margaret and to enjoy that venture and to take her into my heart but that does not mean that I will love you any less or need you any less in my life. When the time is right for us to explore that history, to take that road ahead – we will do it together and we will learn from it and we will put that chapter of our lives away but that time is not here for us, not yet."

Peter nodded, suddenly understanding what his father was saying. It gave Peter great comfort to know that his father still had intentions of sharing his past with him; that he still loved and needed him; that their bond was stronger than ever and that his father understood him in a way that no other person on this planet could ever do.

They hugged again and Peter whispered in the stillness of the early morning "I love you Pop."

The End.

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